PB event to honor civil-rights leader

The legacy of the late civil-rights attorney Wiley Austin Branton will be honored at a Black History Month event in Pine Bluff on Tuesday.

Branton helped desegregate the University of Arkansas School of Law in Fayetteville and was chief counsel for the nine black students who enrolled at Central High School in Little Rock in 1957.

He worked closely with Thurgood Marshall, then was chief counsel for the NAACP Legal Defense and Educational Fund. In the 1960s, Branton represented freedom riders in Mississippi and black people involved in voter registration drives in the South.

His son, Wiley Branton Jr., who is a Pulaski County Circuit Court judge, will speak at the event.

A black history arts show from youths who live in southeast Arkansas will be presented as well.

The Arkansas Martin Luther King Jr. Commission and the city of Pine Bluff are putting on the event at the Pine Bluff Convention Center’s auditorium, 1 Convention Center Drive in Pine Bluff. Doors open at 5 p.m. Events start at 6 p.m.